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Abstract
Nicholas Lambert argues that in 1912 Britain believed it had developed an economic warfare strategy that promised a quick and bloodless victory in the event of war against Germany. This article scrutinises this argument and demonstrates that its evidential and methodological flaws render it untenable.
Notes
1 B.H. Liddell Hart, The Real War 1914–1918 (London: Faber 1930), 56.
2 Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2012)., 501, 515.
3 Ibid., 501.
4 Ibid., 502–3.
5 Ibid., 598, n127.
6 Ibid., 1, 15.
7 E.g., Jon T. Sumida, Book Review of ‘Strategy and War Planning in the British Navy, 1887–1918’ by Shawn T. Grimes, International Journal of Maritime History 24/1 (June 2012), 516; Keith Neilson, ‘1914: The German War?’ European History Quarterly 44 (2014), 396; cf. H-Diplo Roundtable, (2014) <h-net.org~diplo/roundtablesPDF/Roundtable-XV-18>.
8 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 6.
9 Ibid., 258.
10 Ibid., 444.
11 Ibid., 442.
12 E.g., ‘Summary of Negotiations,’ 30 Nov. 1915, State Department Microfilm M-367/198.
13 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 503.
14 Ibid., 502–3.
15 E.g., Frederick Dixon to Cecil, nd [early Nov. 1915], T[he] N[ational] A[rchives of the United Kingdom]: F[oreign] O[ffice] 382/12.
16 House, Diary, 12 Jan. 1916, Yale University, House Papers; Irwin Laughlin (US embassy counsellor), memo of conversation 12 Jan. 1916, revised 12 Dec. 1916, Laughlin Papers, Box 19, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.
17 Quoted in Spring Rice to Grey, 3 Sept. 1914, TNA: FO 800/84; Dixon, memo of conversation, 8 March 1915, Dixon Papers, Library of Congress [LC].
18 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 503.
19 Lansing to Wilson, 22 Sept. 1916, and Wilson to Lansing, 29 Sept. 1916; Arthur Link et al., (eds), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 69 volumes (Princeton UP 1966–94), 38, 201–6 and 294.
20 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 598, n127.
21 Grey to Spring Rice for Lansing, 24 April 1916, Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], 1916 supplement, 377–8; Evans, Kim verdict, John Aspinall (ed.), Lloyd’s Reports of Prize Cases, 10 volumes, (London: Lloyd’s 1915–24), Vol. 3, 295.
22 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 471.
23 Lansing to Page for Grey, 21 Oct. 1915, FRUS, 1915 supplement, 578–89.
24 Aspinall, Lloyd’s Reports, Vol. 4, 86–115.
25 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 639–42.
26 Ibid., 1, 4–5.
27 Ibid., 180–1.
28 Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow [hereafter FDSF] (Oxford: OUP 1961), Vol. 1, 377–83.
29 Esher to M.V. Brett (son), 12 Aug. 1914, Esher Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge.
30 Battenberg, 16 Aug. 1914, minute on draft order-in-council, 13 Aug. 1914, TNA: ADM 116/1233.
31 Marder, FDSF, Vol. 1, 328–95 (plans) and 439–41 (numbers).
32 Lambert, post on H-Diplo, 20 Feb. 2014.
33 Anderson, memorandum, 26 Jan. 1916, Frank Polk Papers, Yale University.
34 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 5.
35 Ibid.
36 Grey of Fallodon, Lord, Twenty-Five Years, 2 volumes (New York: Frederick Stokes 1925), Vol. 2, 107.
37 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 598, n127.
38 Salisbury to US ambassador, 10 Jan. 1900, FRUS, 1900, 549–50.
39 Slade, 15 Aug. 1914, and Battenberg, 16 Aug. 1914, minutes on draft order in council, 14 Aug. 1914. TNA: ADM 116/1233.
40 A.C.Bell, The Blockade of Germany (London: HMSO 1937), 712.
41 John Coogan, The End of Neutrality: The United States, Britain and Maritime Rights, 1899–1915 (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell UP 1981), 160.
42 Bell, Blockade, 713.
43 Ibid., 714.
44 Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 1 March 1915, LXX, 600.
45 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, p. 5.
46 Procurator General to Admiralty, 18 May 1915; Minister in Lisbon to Foreign Office, 15 and 27 March. & 26 May 1915; PG to FO, 1 July 1915. TNA: FO 382/186.
47 PG to Admiralty Marshal, 14 April 1915. TNA: TS 13/335/1.
48 Draft Memoirs, 40, De Chair Papers, Imperial War Museum [IWM].
49 Memorandum, 3 March 1915. TNA: CAB 37/125/7.
50 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 426–8 and 620, n126; Grey to Lord Crewe, 14 June 1915. TNA: FO 800/95.
51 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 493; Jellicoe to Cecil, 13 Jan. 1916; Harwood, Memorandum, 4 Feb. 1916, TNA: FO 382/1099.
52 Ibid., 405.
53 E.g., TNA: FO 368/1195.
54 Bell, Blockade, 35–6.
55 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 477-483 (Jellicoe) & 396-398 (Consett).
56 Jellicoe to De Chair, 15 Sept. and 21 Oct. 1915, De Chair Papers, IWM, 4/2; Jellicoe to Admiralty, 19 June 1915, TNA: ADM 137/2734.
57 E.g., Jellicoe to Admiralty, 14 Sept. and 6 Dec. 1915, TNA: ADM 137/2734 & 2736.
58 Crowe to Board of Trade President Walter Runciman, 19 Nov. 1915, Runciman Papers, 136, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
59 Ralph Paget (Minister, Copenhagen) to Lord Hardinge (Permanent Undersecretary, FO), 25 Nov. 1915, with Grey, minute, Hardinge Papers, 27, Cambridge University Library.
60 Hardinge to Paget, 25 Jan. 1917, Paget Papers, BL: Add Mss 51253.
61 Lambert, Planning Armageddon, 396–8.
62 Ibid., 598, n127.
63 Grey, Twenty-Five Years, Vol. 2, 107.
64 Shakespeare, King John, V, vii, 116.
65 Reginald McKenna, quoted in C.P. Scott, diary, 4 Oct. 1916, Scott Papers, BL: Add Mss 50903.
66 War College Division, General Staff, ‘Plans for War with Great Britain’, 18 March 1915, War Department, Record Group 65/7524-5.
67 NWC to Sec. of Navy, 26 May 1915, FD Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, Record Group 110, Box 4; Admiral Bradley Fiske, Diary, 26 May 1915, Fiske Papers, LC.
68 Cabinet memos, 13 and 24 Nov. 1916, TNA: CAB 37/159/32 & 37/160/15.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
John W. Coogan
John Coogan received his doctorate from Yale in 1976. He is the author of End of Neutrality (1981) as well as numerous articles and reviews. He joined the faculty of the Department of History at Michigan State University in 1982, becoming emeritus in 2007. He is current working on a new book entitled Two Governments so Genuinely Friendly: the United States, Britain, and Maritime Rights, April 1915–April 1917.